


take one step left (and one step right)

by SafelyCapricious



Series: ain't no grave can hold my body down [12]
Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Happy, Love Confessions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:00:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26980276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SafelyCapricious/pseuds/SafelyCapricious
Summary: This is Ino’s fault, Shikamaru thinks as he stares, hungover, with muted shock at Sakura’s hair.Or, more precisely, the braids in Sakura’s hairBraids he now has a vague memory of weaving — but whose composition could’ve only been done by him anyways.
Relationships: Haruno Sakura/Nara Shikamaru
Series: ain't no grave can hold my body down [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1950148
Comments: 27
Kudos: 387





	take one step left (and one step right)

**Author's Note:**

> So uh, Mambo Number 5 by Lou Bega was playing when I went to post this so...so that's where the title is from. You're welcome. 
> 
> Uh, day 12 of Fictober is here, and the prompt used here was...zombie...ily?
> 
> Enjoy the ridiculous fluff!!

This is Ino’s fault, Shikamaru thinks as he stares, hungover, with muted shock at Sakura’s hair.

Or, more precisely, the braids in Sakura’s hair.

Braids he now has a vague memory of weaving — but whose composition could’ve only been done by him anyways.

They’re a little rough — it’s fairly obviously she slept in them — and he’s desperately trying to not attribute meaning to the fact that she didn’t take them out before stumbling to brunch.

None of them — all of the Konoha twelve — are at their best. In fact, most of them look like little more than zombies, which really isn’t that surprising given how much alcohol they had consumed the night before.

Shino appears to actually be asleep, though it’s hard to tell with his sunglasses.

Sasuke’s makeup is smeared pretty dramatically. Shikamaru can’t remember why he got his makeup done in the middle of the party, but he has a hazy recollection about a bet and he thinks someone else got their makeup done as well, but he can’t be entirely sure as that was when he started focusing on pink hair.

Ino is even wearing sunglasses — which wouldn’t be shocking — but the sunglasses clash with her outfit enough that even he can tell.

Of course, she’d been the one to procure the alcohol and bully most of them to attending, so he’s not going to have much pity for her. It’s all her fault, after all.

“Who’re you engaged to?” Hinata asks, peering at Sakura, either completely sober or still drunk, even with her having spoken Shikamaru cannot for the life of him tell.

“What?” Sakura is sober, he’s pretty sure, but she’s still squinting at Hinata in confusion, glancing down at her hands like she expects someone slipped a ring on her finger.

Shikamaru’s life flashes before his eyes when Choji squints his eyes across the table. “Those look like —“ but Choji is a good friend and after glancing at Shikamaru and reading whatever is on his face, he just trails off and leaves it.

Ino is, he hopes, too hungover to realize, but the longer she peers at her friend — Sakura starting to scowl around the table at all of them — the less chance he has of getting out of this alive.

“For fucks sake, Shika,” Ino finally mumbles, and groaning, crosses her arms then puts her face down and doesn’t move again.

“I’m not engaged, Hinata,” Sakura finally says, eyes narrowed like she knows something is up and is going to find out what as soon as possible. “Why do you think I’m engaged?”

“Haaaair n’ braids,” Hinata says, answering both Sakura’s question and the question about if she’s completely sober or still drunk for Shikamaru.

Sakura’s look of confusion moves from Hinata to Shikamaru, who is now trying to hide behind the bulk of Choji and —

“Who did it! Who dishonored my Sakura-chan!” Naruto is standing on the table, shaking a fist at all of them for only a second before Sakura has sent him sailing through the air.

Sasuke, rubbing at his cheek and making even a bigger mess of his makeup says, blearily, “Are those Nara braids you have in your hair?”

And Shikamaru decides that discretion is the better part of valor and goes to flash step away when he finds Sakura’s already taken a step and has his arm in a grip he has no hope of every breaking — and is flash stepping them away from the group.

“Troublesome,” he rubs the back of his neck once they’ve come to a stop several blocks away, and realizes how it might sound immediately after and holds his hands up. “Not you — I don’t mean — just — them and —“

“Relax, I’m not going to hit you yet. Want to explain the braids, Nara?” she’s got her hip cocked and her eyebrow raised and continues to be stupid pretty. Which is to say, the kind of pretty that makes him stupid.

“I just — I meant that — your hair is — “ he grimaces and rubs at his forehead where a headache is pounding, trying to make his brain _work_ so that he can explain and —

Her hands are cool against his head and the pain dissolves like an ice cube on a hot sidewalk. “Wanna try that again?”

“Go out with me?” he asks, instead of whatever stupid argument he was trying to come up with to justify braiding a proposal into her hair.

Ino’s probably right, he is kind of an idiot when it comes to women. But even he knows he can’t propose — even though he thinks she might be perfect for him, for all that she’s far from perfect in general. But her broken pieces match against his, he knows, from spending time with her as a friend, and he thinks like putting a mosaic together they can probably make something better than their broken parts, if they’re together.

He wants that, he wants her. And his heart is in his throat as he waits for her response.

“Kind of a downgrade, don’t you think?” she asks, nonchalantly looking at her fingernails as his heart plummets to his feet, “from engaged to dating? Pretty sure it’s supposed to go the other way.”

“You didn’t know what the braids meant — what I was — I was forcing my own hand. To ask you. I…like you, Sakura,” he grimaces, feeling like he’s twelve all over again and hating it more the second time. “I didn’t mean to mess it up or — or whatever."

“Yeah, alright,” she says, grinning up at him — and then abruptly he’s got his arms full of her and there are lips on his and — the back of his head hits the side of the building with some force but it doesn’t stop him kissing her back and he’s rewarded with her hand cradling the back of his head and like the hangover the pain is temporary and certainly worth it.

Eventually she pulls back, and he feels instantly bereft, but then she’s reaching up to her hair and hesitating. “I don’t suppose there’s a dating braid, hm?”

“We can make one,” he murmurs, stepping close and using careful fingers to begin to undo the braids, pleased when her breath hitches a little and she leans willingly into him, “just for us.”

She smiles at him and he thinks he probably owes Ino a massive favor for convincing him to come to the party and get drunk.

**Author's Note:**

> FLUFF
> 
> I totally love Sakura and Shikamaru, so I think I'll write them again later. They're adorable, this is stupid but whatever.
> 
> If you wanna chat come bug me on my [writing tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/capriciouswrites).


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